Category Archives: Ranty post

It may come as a complete and utter surprise or an exclaimation that is unbelievable (especially to children!) but…I am going to put this out there that grown ups don’t know everything!

Yes, I see the frown on your face ( you stopped reading for a second and wondered whether you had a frown didn’t you?)

We like to pretend we know everything and we can’t have our children thinking that there are things we don’t know because, well, they just might use that snippet of knowledgelessness to gain an advantage over us parents. (I’ll ask Oxford to add it to their list of new words in their next edition) .

A friend of ours’ child, recently enlightened me with a story I hadn’t heard before. It was about an American Indian folklore of sorts where the story is about the 2 wolves inside you. One is a bad wolf (think of the usual suspects that come to mind like greed, jealousy etc) and the other a good wolf (kindness, love etc). It’s a great tale and the moral of the story is about feeding the good wolf rather than the bad one.

The other bit of enlightment that I also watched was the children at our school singing a beautiful song called ‘As One’ which is about listening to each other, getting on and basically learning from each other.

There have been a few others that have made me stop and think. These two examples are generally aimed at children and in so many ways should be aimed at their parents or the grown ups around them. I so often see children that are spoken at rather than with. My heart swells at times when I hear the message the children have to give. I just wish, grown ups would open their ears and listen to them!

When the boys were smaller, I used to tell them that ‘Mums know everything’ and they would nod and agree. As time went by, our youngest son started to test this theory out. Could I see what he was doing under the table or he would ask a question that I had no idea the answer was and then very proudly point out ‘ See! Mom’s don’t know everything!’

Now, I give the answer ‘I don’t know’ and the boys ask ‘Why don’t you know?’ My answer is because grown ups don’t know everything and that grown ups don’t always do the right thing either.

Clever clogs then piped up ‘Yes, because they are also learning to be grown ups just like we are learning to be children’.

I don’t need to say anymore now do I?

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I’ve been overdue a ranty post for a little while now and well what has got my brain in a little tornado this time you ask? (or don’t ask but happen to be reading the words!) The lastest life sentences debate is what has got the fingers tapping away faster than the eyes can see what is on this post!

So…if I heard the news correct, the EU is looking to see whether someone or country has broken some human rights legislation on the imposition of life sentences for criminals who have been convicted of serious offences and been handed a jail term of life.

Now, we all know that jail terms are not generally adhered to and the cynic in me tends to halve whatever sentence is handed down to someone. Do I like the concept? No. Do I agree with the concept? No. The old addage of do the crime pay the time used to mean what it said. Sadly, that is no longer the case.

So, back to these life term sentences. Apparently, giving someone in their 20’s a life term for the very clearly serious crime they committed is against their human rights as by the time they are 70, their circumstances may have changed. Yes, they have got older and should have thought about what they were doing before they committed the act of murder, rape etc etc.

( I ask the following questions with respect but to make the point I am about to make).

Did they think of the victim’s human rights when they killed them or whatever awful thing they did to the victim? No!

Is the victim’s circumstances going to change in 50 years time? No!

So why should someone who took the right to life away from someone else be afforded the priviledge of being free after being found guilty in a court of law? I don’t get it! I honestly don’t!

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Depending on where you are on the world and how often you hear or read the news, somehow you must have heard that there was a large storm predicted to hit the UK from Sunday night.

Now, I am aware, that some readers will have endured many a hurricane, tornado, monsoon and a few other extreme weather systems and will possibly be thinking ‘Ah yes! Those Brits are overreacting again over a little weather’. And there are the usual jokers out there who make fun of these kinds of situations (fair enough…I can take a joke).

What has really got my back up you ask? Well, it’s the question that is now being asked of various people on the news ‘Did we overreact?’ and were we being ‘too cautious’ ?

You can NEVER be too cautious when, to date, 2 people have lost their lives and 1 is still missing out at sea! And all the individuals who are out there cutting trees, restoring power are doing their jobs in less than favourable conditions. Darn right dangerous conditions in fact if you just look at the RNLI guys out looking for the boy who was swept out to sea!

Honestly! Have some compassion and sense! (sorry the exclaimation marks are coming out!). Weather is not an exact science. I don’t mean to sound disrespectful to the bunch at the weather office – I am more meaning that they can predict and give an indication of what they think may happen and in this case I think they were pretty spot on. But…if they hadn’t said anything and people weren’t prepared – there would be hell to pay too!

So – thank you to everyone who is out there getting power back, clearing roads/trains/airports and in general helping people who HAVE been affected. We lost power this morning but only for an hour. I thought it would have been for longer and so am extra grateful that it was short lived.